


amo ergo vivam

by Yersina



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Unreliable Narrator, Weddings, can't believe there's a specific tag for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yersina/pseuds/Yersina
Summary: “O deities of this dark world beneaththe earth! this shadowy underworld, to whichall mortals must descend!…I come notdown here because of curiosityto see the glooms of Tartarus and haveno thought to bind or strangle the three necksof the Medusan Monster, vile with snakes.But I have come, because my darling wifestepped on a viper that sent through her veinsdeath-poison, cutting off her coming years.”Ovid, Metamorphoses 10, Orpheus et Eurydice
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13
Collections: MINSUNG BINGO: Round One





	amo ergo vivam

**Author's Note:**

> please heed all the tags!! this isn't a light story. there's also a rather minor mention of self-harm that didn't feel like it needed tagging, but pls let me know if i should. (i don’t usually write or read stuff this dark so i’m not sure how much i should be tagging...) if you'd like to skip the explicit character death and self-harm mention, just skip to the line break! 
> 
> summary translation is from [the perseus project](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0028%3Abook%3D10%3Acard%3D1)! 
> 
> written for [minsung bingo](https://twitter.com/minsungbingo)! prompts: weddings, au - fairy tale/fantasy, free space (floral motif)
> 
> (i swear to god i don't usually post this much, i just got a fire lit under my ass for the end of minsung bingo)

Jisung tugs Minho out of the crowd and to the side of the small clearing, tired but happy and grinning incandescently from ear to ear. “Hello,” he says, looping his arms around Minho’s neck and feeling Minho’s hands settling on either side of his waist in return. “I’ve missed you.”

Minho laughs, pressing a gentle kiss to Jisung’s lips. The sensation makes him shiver happily, dragging up memories of not more than an hour ago when Minho had done the same once they’d been officially declared married. “I’ve hardly been away from you for more than fifteen minutes at a time since the sun began descending,” he says fondly, rubbing circles into Jisung’s skin. “Your friends will begin accusing me of stealing you away if this continues.”

“And what’s to say I don’t want you to,” Jisung murmurs against Minho’s lips. It’s a tempting thought—an eternity sequestered away, spending all of his waking thoughts on _Minho Minho Minho._ “Let them talk. I’d bear all of their gossip if it meant being with you forever.”

Minho replies with a kiss, removing one hand from Jisung’s waist to cup his cheek, touch feather-light like Jisung could shatter if he pressed too hard. Olympus itself could never compare to the earthly pleasure of feeling Minho’s skin against his own and Jisung falls and falls and falls into the depths of his feelings for Minho, head spinning and heart pounding in time to the rhythm of _I love you._

Eventually, Minho pulls away, resting his forehead against Jisung’s and swiping his thumb over Jisung’s bottom lip. “This is just as much your wedding as it is mine,” he says and laughs when Jisung pulls away with a groan. “Please, go speak with your friends. I don’t think I could bear Felix’s heartbroken looks any longer.”

“Felix’s heart is broken every time he doesn’t get his way,” Jisung says stubbornly, but he’s already steeling himself to wade into the fray of people. “You must inure yourself to the expression.”

“Of course.” There’s an indulgent but fond undertone to the reply. 

Jisung sighs and begins his trek over to the guests, who have yet to notice that both of their hosts have excused themselves from the revelries, when there’s a small “oh” from behind him. It’s hardly a wisp of sound, easily lost amidst the veritable cacophony of noise that’s in front of him, but Jisung would be able to hear any sound of Minho’s, regardless of how loud it is.

He turns back, mouth open to ask Minho if he has changed his mind, when he notices the slack, shocked expression upon Minho’s face. “Sweetheart...?” he asks hesitantly, creeping closer. “Are you alright?” The sound of music and talking behind him fade into the background, a dissonant harmony that he pays no heed to in favor of the twisting nervousness growing in his stomach. 

Minho turns to look at him and Jisung has barely a second of warning before Minho’s eyes roll backwards and his body begins to crumple. Jisung dives for him, catching Minho in his arms and nearly fumbling, hands having abruptly gone numb. He can see nothing else, hear nothing else, feel nothing else except for Minho’s pale, sallow skin and short breaths, deafening and silent all at once. “No no no no no,” he chants mindlessly, his mouth automatically giving voice to his thoughts. He gently pats at Minho’s face, shivering when his head merely lolls to the side. “Sweetheart? Love? Look at me?” His voice trembles, but he doesn’t _care_ because the love of his life, his husband, his _soulmate_ is dying before his eyes.

He lowers Minho to the ground with the utmost care before exploding into a frenzy, flipping Minho’s clothes every which way until he spots the telltale puncture wounds of a snake bite hidden on the back of his leg, the site nearly purple with pulsing blood. It’s not any venom that Jisung recognizes, and its swiftness in acting is certainly nothing that Jisung has seen before, but none of that matters because _Minho is still dying._

A light touch to his shoulder is hardly a sufficient obstacle, and Jisung brushes it away brusquely before raising his hands to the sky in prayer. “Apollo, god of medicine— _Father,”_ he corrects. “You raised me and taught me everything I know and as your son I ask one more favor of you.” He can feel it in his bones that this is useless, that the gods are turning a blind eye or simply ignorant of petty mortal concerns, but Jisung can’t do anything other than push onward. “Please,” he begs, and his voice breaks before he can force out the entirety of the word. The tears begin flowing down his face and there’s no force in the world that could have stopped them. “Please, Father—god—Apollo. _Help him.”_

He waits fruitlessly, knows that it’s hopeless even before it truly begins to sink in, and yet he still beats a fist against the ground, screaming his outrage. “What use are you,” he hisses, the ground in front of him swimming through his tears, “if you can’t even save one man.”

He feels so _helpless_ like this, completely and utterly unable to do anything for Minho as he slowly slips away in front of Jisung’s eyes, but there’s absolutely nothing within him that tells him to walk away. He reaches out and tugs Minho’s hand into his own, clasping it like it’s a talisman that can ward away the evil currently making its way through Minho’s veins. “I love you,” he whispers through a frozen throat. “I love you I love you I love you I love you,” he says over and over and over because it’s the only truth he knows and it’ll remain the truth for as long as he lives. “I’ll always love you.”

He chokes when Minho turns slightly in his direction, falling over himself to take Minho’s face between his hands, searching desperately past his fluttering eyelids and whites of his eyes. “Please,” and he doesn’t even know who he’s praying to or what he’s begging for, _”please.” Stay with me._

It takes much too long for him to realize that Minho—for him to realize. He holds Minho’s hand between his own until it falls from his limp grasp, he keeps his eyes on Minho’s face until it slackens unnaturally, and he collapses onto Minho’s unmoving chest as soon as the realization crests over him like a wave sent by Poseidon himself to drag him out to sea.

He barely registers what noise he’s making, only that his throat hurts too much to keep making it, and then he resorts to clawing at his arms because he can’t survive with this—this _feeling_ inside of him, this sadness grief anger loneliness building up and up and up until Jisung is nothing but the knowledge that he’s alone now, so so alone without his other half, his perfect complement, his soulmate. He wants it out of his body, out in the air where it can’t taint his chest arms lungs legs head _body_ because he can’t coexist with his thoughts and his feelings and his memories and this godawful knowledge that _Minho is dead._

* * *

Minho wakes up with rocks under his feet and a coin in his hand. There is no confusion, no moment of realization where all of his memories suddenly come rushing back to him—no. There is only emptiness and then awareness. Minho wakes up with his wit and memories intact, a ghost of pain in his leg, and a coin in his hand.

Minho is dead.

He has to sit down for a moment, crashing down gracelessly against the rough rock and craggy stalagmites jutting out from beneath his feet. It should hurt, but it doesn’t, and Minho implicitly knows that bodily pains won’t hurt him unless Hades wants them to hurt. Because he is in the Underworld now. And he is alone.

He clutches at his chest, right where his heart should be beating, and mourns for everything that he has just lost, the people he has left behind, the places, his future. _Jisung._ A sob rips out of his throat and he has to clasp a hand over his mouth, taking in shuddering breaths through his nose until his hand is soaked and dripping with his tears. He would wish to be dead, but that wish has already been granted and his pain is none the lesser for it. 

It doesn’t take long enough for the tears to stop. Minho’s body gives up long before his mind does, leaving dried lines of salt against his cheeks and a gaping hole in his heart. There’s a numbness pressing in on him, urging him to forget to throw away to succumb and he shakes his head until he can feel his brain rattling around in his skull but the feeling stays. He won’t forget. He _can’t_ forget, because the essence of what makes Minho himself is Jisung.

He finally looks up, exhausted, desperate for a distraction from the growing, crawling emptiness spreading through his chest. There’s an older man sitting on a rock not too far from him, gaze trained on his clasped hands in his lap, and a woman collapsed on the ground further down. Only he and the woman are holding coins. 

Beyond them, is a river and a boat, and at the helm is a dark figure Minho knows to be Charon. There is no face that he can see, no movement beyond the gentle sway of robes in an invisible breeze but he can feel the deity staring at him, staring at his coin, and beckoning him closer. Minho shivers. 

He stands up on shaky legs, distantly amused because he certainly feels like everything holding him up has been ripped away, and begins making his way over to the boat. He keeps his eyes trained on his feet, partially because he doesn’t want to puncture a hole in his foot even if he is incapable of feeling pain, and partially because his neck feels incapable of supporting any weight currently. The monumental task of putting one foot in front of the other is enough to keep him occupied but not enough to ignore the hand snaking around his arm and jerking him to a stop.

He whips his head up to stare at the old man, meeting washed out, pale grey eyes with his own. It’s like looking into a sketch of a man, one that’s incredibly detailed and yet lacking all of the energy that makes a human a living creature. “Boy,” the man croaks through cracked lips embedded in spotted skin. “Spare a coin for an old man.”

Minho clutches his coin tighter automatically, wrapping it protectively in his fist and shaking his head. “I’m sorry—” and he is, because no one deserves a hundred of this on account of an improper burial— “but I can’t.”

The old man goes for his hand with a frenzy and Minho has to fight out of his grip, darting out of his reach and fleeing as quickly as he dares without risking tripping over the uneven ground and falling. He doesn’t stop running until his feet hit water, air passing through his lips in huge, trembling gasps like he just sprinted uphill. A quick look backwards reveals a completely empty stretch of barren, rocky land—devoid of either the old man or the woman. 

“Your payment.” Minho spins back around and freezes at the hooded figure in front of him, stretching out a spindly hand palm up. He must pause too long because Charon adds, “You must pay to cross the River Styx.”

Minho mutely passes over the coin and takes a seat as Charon pockets it and begins to row, glancing at his surroundings as they slowly push off from the shore and into the mist that separates the place of Minho’s arrival and the rest of the Underworld. For a long time, there is nothing to see besides mist and the trail of rippled water stemming from Charon’s paddle. Minho focuses on the ripples to blank his mind of anything else, staring at the water as it bobs up and down and up and down until suddenly he can see the bed of the river through the surface of the water and Charon’s boat hits upon land. 

Minho climbs out and watches as Charon pushes away from the shore, disappearing into the mist within moments, presumably to ferry another spirit. A shiver wracks Minho’s body again. That’s what he is, now. A spirit. 

The place where Charon has deposited him is deserted, save for a few lonely flowers that dot the ground. Asphodel, he recognizes. The white flowers bow gracefully in a gentle breeze and Minho tries not to hate them, but he _does,_ he hates that they’re so carefree and ignorant to his pain, he hates the eternity of nothingness that they represent, and he hates that they at least have companions while he’s all alone. 

He has to sit down again from the weight of the crushing knowledge that he is truly alone now, nothing and no one to remind him of home of life of who he is, nothing but the memories and pain that pulse through him like the sweetest poison. Another sob builds up in his throat, though only a small trickle of tears accompanies it, and Minho curls up on the ground, tucking his face to his knees, and cries. He doesn’t know what he cries for, not specifically, and it doesn’t do anything to lessen the pain that still presses on him from within, the terror and the sadness that drive him to tremble before their might. 

It’s a long time before the numbness retreats from his fingers and his breath doesn’t rattle in his throat, but he does have eternity to recuperate, he thinks bitterly. The thought is equal parts comforting and scary—the sadness and anger beneath his breastbone already feel like second nature. He already has no idea how to live without them. 

He climbs to his feet wearily, swiping at his eyes harshly and only mildly surprised when his eyes don’t feel the sting of dirt from his hands. It seems cruel rather than generous for Hades to only steal away his bodily pain and leave him with this numb sorrow, but Hades has no need for kindness. Perhaps he should be thankful that he didn’t end up in Tartarus. 

Scanning the field in front of him, he realizes that rather than stretching as far as his eye can see, it fades into the darkness despite there being no source of light. He doesn’t know what that means, but it’s enough to pique his curiosity, so he sets off. He has no destination in mind, no home to go or come back to, so he merely walks, body moving automatically and mind blank. He can’t walk until his body collapses, because he knows it won’t, so he plans to walk until his mind refuses to put one foot in front of the other anymore, until he finds a reason to stop. The darkness recedes as he presses forward, but so does the light behind him, and he realizes that he will have no way of marking his progress as he walks, because the stretch of land in front of him is no more distinct than the ground he has put behind him. 

No matter. He’s not walking to travel, anyway. 

A few hours—days? Months? Years?—into his journey, the flower field starts to peter out into gravel and pebbles leading up to the sandy bank of a river. This one isn’t manned by an ominous god, but neither does Minho dip his toes in. There’s an instinct within him, one that wasn’t instilled within him at birth, but no less strong for it, that warns him not to touch. The whispers of the river are soft but strong, and he cocks his head to the side, listening.

 _Wouldn’t you like to forget?_ it asks sweetly, crooning a silent song that Minho automatically leans forward to hear. _It’s so painful, isn’t it? The memories, the sadness, the love?_ And oh, they _are._ Minho doesn’t think it’ll ever stop hurting. _You can forget them within my waters. Come, wash yourself._

And for a moment, Minho is so, _so_ tempted. It would be so easy, he knows. A few steps, a drink of water—and he could be free. He wouldn’t have this grief filling up every cavern in his body, a mantra within his head screaming whispering saying _alone alone alone all alone in the world._ He wouldn’t—

Minho trips over his own feet in his haste to rip his eyes away from the water, crashing to the ground in a heap of limbs and wrapping them around himself like it’ll protect him from the insidious promises of the river. “Lethe,” he whispers through numb lips. A part of him still yearns to walk into the river, to let go of everything that ties him to his previous life, and that part begs for him to pick himself up and dive headfirst into the waters and _forget._ “No, no, no,” he mumbles, trying to remember why it would be a bad idea. There—there must be more than the pain, he thinks to himself desperately. There must be a reason not to forget.

He sits there, skin dimpled by the press of river stones against his flesh, and _thinks._ He thinks of sunlight on tanned skin, the kiss of red fruit against pink lips, the song of laughter in the air and _hurts_ for it. It’s the greatest torture to recall each and every one of his happiest memories with Jisung and he’s faintly amazed that his body can still produce tears. He remembers the beautiful reverberation of music in the air, the touch of lips against his, the coolness of grass against two pairs of feet, the fleeting moments of everyday life that never fail to repeat each day and yet feel all the more precious because of it. And they _hurt,_ cutting like a thousand arrows piercing his skin, pounding like the beating of fists against his chest, and yet the thought of losing them is worse because he still loves Jisung with every single fiber of his being, loves him like the earth loves the sky, forever entwined, never one without the other. 

After all, who is Minho without Jisung?

He picks himself up off the ground, staggering when his vision swims before his eyes, and leaves the riverbank at nothing short of a run, not a single finger or flapping hem damp. 

He slows to a walk eventually, breath puffing quickly through his lips and heart thudding in his chest, though whether from exertion or fear, only the gods know. The asphodel flowers reappear in his vision, like white stars against a green sky, and he finally decides to stop and examine one, too tired from running and feeling and remembering. 

The entire plant comes up to his knee, unnervingly pristine with each flower in full bloom and yet none of them showing any sign of decay. It quivers slightly when Minho reaches out to touch it, petals and leaves swaying in time to an unheard beat. He’s never liked asphodel, not even when he was still alive, but there’s something hypnotizing about the way it rocks back and forth in the air, forwards and backwards and forwards and back—

“Minho.” 

His name is like a shock to his senses, pulling him out of his thoughts and up towards the soft gaze of the woman who stands before him. He knows her name, much like he knows he’ll never be hurt by the jagged rocks. Like the way he knows he’s dead. “Persephone.” He wonders if it’s disrespectful not to address her by her title, but he’s beyond caring. What more can she do to hurt him? Physical torture is hardly anything compared to what he’s already borne so far.

“You’re a little lost, aren’t you?” Her voice is gentle but firm and reminds him of the unchanging perfection of the white flower still beneath his fingers and the ones wreathed upon her head.

He stands up, meeting her gaze head on. Her visage slides past his eyes and through his memory like a ripple of silk, never settling on one form for long. It makes his head hurt. “Can I truly be lost if I didn’t have a destination to begin with?” he counters.

Her laugh is the rustle of budding leaves in a spring breeze, the chirping of young birds still trapped in nests. “You’re as lost as you believe yourself to be,” she acquiesces, eyes twinkling like white stars in a green sky. “Do you believe yourself to be lost?”

Does he? Minho could be lost—he certainly feels like it, left floundering and grasping in the Underworld with nothing of his life in his death, but is he _lost?_ “I know exactly where I am meant to be,” he says slowly, picking over his words carefully. “And that place is not here.”

Persephone smiles, mouth like the bend of a river, and beckons him over. “I can lead you to where you are meant to be.”

Minho is suspicious. How can he not be? Even as the queen of the Underworld, Persephone is not known among mortals for being able to bring them back to life. “And where is that?”

“Come.” Not content to wait for Minho anymore, Persephone begins striding away, each step careful and measured and yet taking her leaps and leagues away from him. Minho stares for a beat too long, mind wavering between the evil he knows and the evil he doesn’t, before scurrying after her.

They walk for an immeasurable amount of time, each step in sync with the other’s. Minho counts flowers to pass the time—one, two, three, four, five until he reaches one hundred and then beginning again. He doesn’t actually wish to know how far he has traveled, because the number would be meaningless, but it holds his attention away from the gnawing need to ask Persephone where she’s taking him. 

In the end, it’s not Persephone that reveals to him where—or rather _who—_ she’s taking him to. Minho has made his way to yet another fifty-six when the faintest wisp of music makes it to his ears and he freezes in place, straining to hear more. He knows that sound he knows it he knows it _he knows it—_

He takes no heed of Persephone as he nearly stumbles over his own feet in his haste to dash forwards, too preoccupied with thoughts of Jisung Jisung _Jisung_ to pay any attention to the goddess. He knows that tremor of strings like he knows the constellation of moles upon Jisung’s face, having heard it for years upon years until he’d joked that Jisung loved the instrument more than Minho. _He knows it._

The music grows louder as Minho runs in the direction that he and Persephone had been traveling in for the past eternity, and he wills his legs to carry him faster, for Aeolus himself to bring him to Jisung. He hardly notices the growing crowd of spirits beyond the need to keep out of their way for fear of bumping into them and delaying him further, too focused on finding the source of the sound. 

He skids to a stop in front of a set of gilded doors and finally takes a moment to scan his surroundings wildly, searching desperately for a way in. There’s a mass of spirits milling about in front of the doors, seemingly drawn in by the noise, but there’s no doorkeeper, no sign that tells Minho how to open them. The music slowly comes to a stop, the last chord a sweet harmony that brings a tremulous smile to Minho’s face for how nostalgic it sounds. 

And then the doors open.

Persephone gives him a smile, amused on his behalf but not malicious. “Quite impatient, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you be, if the source of your very being lay within your grasp?” he snaps, fed up with the goddess’s half-riddles. “Show me Jisung.”

Her smile ticks up further but she merely steps aside, holding the door open for him. “Welcome, Minho, to the palace of Hades.”

Minho bows stiffly before he enters, each nerve tightened to the snapping point, and slips inside. The inside is a marvelous patchwork of glistening obsidian and white marble with streaks of gold, but he only has eyes for the figure seated in a velvet chair. He has his back turned to Minho, facing the god Minho knows to be Hades, but Minho would know him anywhere.

“Jisung,” he breathes, and is in front of him before Minho can help himself, knelt on the ground and gazing up at Jisung like he’s Apollo incarnate. He touches the dark bags under Jisung’s eyes and skims his fingers over the frown etched onto his lips, a heartbroken noise falling from his throat without his consent. “My love, you look so tired.”

Jisung doesn’t respond, as Minho knew he wouldn’t, and continues staring defiantly at Hades, ruler of the Underworld. “Rest assured,” Jisung grinds out, “if my venture fails, your kingdom will be richer for it.” It stills Minho’s fretting as the words sink in, and Minho wishes beyond hope that his body were corporeal.

“No, no, don’t do that,” he says softly, resting a hand against Jisung’s wild hair and wanting so badly to tangle his fingers through them. “You would break both our hearts.” The selfish part of him wishes for it, wants the eternity with Jisung that the Underworld promises him, but he would not, _cannot_ forgive himself if that happened.

Hades is silent as he considers the proposition that Jisung must’ve laid before him, before turning to Persephone. “What say you?”

Persephone looks right as Minho as she hums in consideration, twirling the stalk of an asphodel between her fingers. “Can’t you see their love,” she sighs prettily, tilting her ever-changing head to the side. “Don’t they deserve another chance?”

Hades nods in agreement. “Your terms are this, mortal,” he starts. “You will be allowed your husband—” Minho is the only one who can feel the shiver that wracks Jisung’s frame and the twitch of his fingers against his knee— “but only on one condition: you must not look back.”

“Is that all?” Jisung asks when Hades pauses for a moment. Minho clutches at Jisung’s legs and prays that his foolish husband isn’t struck down by the god of the Underworld. 

“Perhaps you do not understand me, mortal.” Hades leans forward in his seat, bracing his arms against those of his throne as he stares down at Jisung. “You will leave this realm the way you arrived. You will face the same hardships and trials and the same obstacles will stand in your way. You will do all of this with your precious lover by your side, but you will know not of his existence.”

Jisung freezes but indignation quickly washes it away. “Speak truly,” he warns. “I know of your half-truths. Tell me plainly what you mean.”

“He means that Minho will follow you to the surface,” Persephone says instead, enigmatic smile still present upon her lips. “You will walk and he will follow, because he knows not of the route to the living, but you must not look back. You must trust in his loyalty and his love—”

“—and your word,” Jisung interjects angrily. “I don’t see him here. How do I know he’ll be with me once I return to the living?”

“Faith,” Persephone replies, spreading her hands guilelessly. “We do not seek to hurt you, mortal. We can see clearly your love for each other, and we trust in your song of grief.”

Jisung falls silent, staring at the ground beneath Persephone’s feet, but Minho already knows where his mind lies. He lays his hand upon where Jisung’s is curled tightly on his thigh, wanting so badly to unwind it and lace their fingers together. “You have me,” he whispers, looking into Jisung’s eyes even though they see right through him. “I’ll always be with you, even if you can’t see me.”

Jisung’s hand relaxes and he looks up at Hades with determination. “You will keep your end of the bargain,” he says, hardly a question. “And Minho will be returned to me.”

“Of course.” There’s a breath of power in the room, a gust of fate or promise or _something,_ and the deal is sealed. “You’re free to leave, mortal. It will begin once you step foot outside this palace.”

Jisung rises up at once, barely missing Minho’s head, and strides out of the throne room. Minho lingers, eyes on Persephone. The words stick in his throat, almost false enough to be a lie, but he bites them out anyway. “Thank you.” He spins on his heel before he receives a reply and chases Jisung out of the palace.

The crowd of spirits from before has thinned slightly without the music keeping them captivated, but they swarm forward again when Jisung appears, eyes shining and hands hungry as they reach for him. Before Minho can snap at them to leave, an ear-splitting bark reverberates through the air and the crowd scatters, some screaming for mercy. 

Jisung merely laughs, strumming a major chord as Cerberus prances to a stop in front of them. “Thank you,” he says kindly, and Minho feels his heart swell with fondness at the smile that finally graces Jisung’s face. “I’ll play a song for you again someday, but not now.” He pats the three-headed dog on each nose before making his way to the rocky shore where Charon waits, as dark and skeletal as Minho remembers him to be.

“A tribute, to cross,” Charon says simply, hand gripping his paddle loosely. Minho watches curiously as Jisung climbs into the boat, leaving room for another as he picks up his lyre and strums the first few notes of a melody.

Minho climbs in behind him, careful to stay out of sight, and listens with a happy smile on his face as Jisung plucks his way through a simple but elegant song as they make their way across the Styx. Charon makes no comment, simply pushing his paddle into the water over and over again, but Minho prefers to think that he saw a hint of a smile beneath the dark hood.

They arrive on the opposite shore before long, boat nudging gently against the stones on the bottom of the river. Jisung clambers out first, careful to keep his lyre out of the water, and Minho follows. There are no spirits on the shore this time, no old men begging for coins, which Minho is quietly grateful for. 

“I missed you,” Jisung says suddenly, and Minho nearly replies, but he’s uncertain if Hades or Persephone would have lifted his inability to be sensed, halfway between dead and alive as he now is. He knows that in Jisung’s position, no force on Earth would have kept him from turning around to see Jisung himself, so he stays quiet. “Oh gods, I missed you so much,” he says, voice breaking halfway through, but no tears fall. “I don’t know if you’re there or if you can hear me, but I love you and I miss you.” The hand that’s empty flexes by Jisung’s side, as if he wishes to find Minho and pull him to Jisung. 

_I love you too,_ echoes emptily in Minho’s mind and he wants so badly for the ability to touch, to reassure. _I’m here, Jisung, I’m_ here. 

Jisung takes a moment to collect himself, wiping at his eyes even though there are no tears, and sucks in a deep breath. “The trip will be long,” he says aloud, “but worth it.” It sounds as much a promise as a reassurance.

They begin making their way further into the craggy terrain that is the far side of the Underworld, rocky spires reaching up from the ground like teeth created by Gaia to swallow them whole. Strangely enough, there’s a clear path for them to take, one that leads further into the darkness so characteristic of the Underworld. “You really ought to thank Chan,” Jisung says as he makes his way over a cluster of several small stalagmites. “He was the one to suggest asking Apollo how to find the mortal entrance to the Underworld.” Minho is torn between knee-buckling gratitude and unshakable anger, but he supposes that with or without Chan’s help, Jisung would have found his way down here. 

It quickly becomes apparent that much more time had passed than Minho had expected while he was wandering the Fields of Asphodel. Jisung’s progress is slow and cautious, but even so, Minho can tell that the road is long and arduous, one that may take Jisung days, if not weeks to complete. It worries him, because while his belief holds steady with the sight of Jisung safe in front of him, Jisung doesn’t have the same luxury. 

Eventually, Jisung stumbles one too many times in the span of a few minutes, and he finds a relatively flat area amongst the perpetual rough rock to sit and rest. Minho tucks himself into a nook behind him, for once grateful for his inability to feel how uncomfortable his position is. “I hope you’re doing alright,” Jisung says, gazing blankly into the space in front of him. “I don’t suppose you could give me a sign that you’re with me?”

There’s a chunk of rock lying next to Minho, small enough that he could easily throw it or nudge it or give some sort of sign that he’s there, but an utterly encompassing terror stops him from doing so. He’s here. Jisung is here. They’re _so close_ to being within each other’s embraces once again, if only Jisung holds on until the end. 

He stays his hand.

Jisung sighs and slumps back against a nearby outcropping. “Thought so.” He lies there crookedly until his eyelids begin drooping, fluttering open every few seconds with his wish to stay awake. Minho wants to tell him to go to sleep, to save his energy for leaving this place as soon as possible. He wants to pull Jisung close and cradle him in his arms, stroking Jisung’s hair until both of them fall asleep entangled in each other and wake to birdsong. “I’ll save you,” Jisung murmurs quietly before closing his eyes and truly succumbing to Hypnos’ call. 

The next few days—as much as Minho can call them days with no indication of daylight or nighttime—pass in much the same manner. Jisung takes to talking to Minho every now and then as he walks, occasionally speaking of their friends’ lives in the time between Minho’s death and Jisung’s descent, but largely reserving his comments for absent recollections of Minho’s laughter or smile or kindness or mischief. It makes a warmth kindle within Minho’s chest, heating his cheeks and ears whenever Jisung spouts poetry about the way Minho’s hair looks in the sunshine.

Jisung never stops for anything other than sleeping. Minho’s not sure why this is the case—Jisung’s footsteps never falter from starvation and he doesn’t collapse of dehydration, but if he doesn’t stop and rest, he begins tripping over anything and everything. Perhaps it’s a well wish from Persephone or Hades, to see them out of the Underworld as quickly as possible, or perhaps it’s the result of a mortal trapped in the realm of the dead. He and Jisung are two sides of the same coin, one dead-and-not-yet-alive and the other alive-but-nearly-dead. 

Minho’s lifted spirits at Jisung’s appearance in the Underworld quickly fall once it becomes truly apparent how long they may continue to be trapped. His limbs don’t shake with exhaustion the way Jisung’s do but he feels Jisung’s pain all the same, watching him push himself to the limit each and every day to bring Minho back to the world of the living. It makes the silence more painful than ever, to see Jisung struggle and not be able to offer a soft word of encouragement. 

“I’m trying so hard for you,” Jisung whispers to him one day as he clings to the edge of a rock. “I believe and I believe and I believe and that’s all I have right now—” He cuts off the end of the sentence before it leaves his mouth but what has already escaped is enough to sow fear in Minho’s mind. “If only you could give me one indication that you’re with me.”

 _I_ am _here,_ Minho cries silently. He stretches his hand out, the closest it’s ever come to Jisung since their trek began, and prays for the will to keep from closing the distance between them. _Listen to your heart and know that I’ll always be here with you._

Jisung’s sleep that night is fitful, tossing and turning painfully between the craggy rock. Minho’s heart follows suit, wringing itself in his chest with every thought that Jisung might be having doubts, that he’s suffering from the weight of being on his own while Minho is able to take comfort from Jisung’s presence next to him. 

He dares to let the tendril of a lullaby from his throat, a crooning melody that Minho has sung for Jisung many times before when he couldn’t sleep. He can’t bring himself to sing it any louder than a whisper, but he maintains it for as long as Jisung is asleep, hoping that it soothes his dreams and his worries. 

When Jisung wakes, he doesn’t move for a long time. Minho waits, a lump in his throat, and watches as Jisung stares into the empty space in front of him. There’s nothing he can do to help him now, but oh, does he wish he could. He wishes he could take Jisung’s hands into his and murmur reassurances into his skin, wants to tell Jisung to rest for a week until the light returns to his eyes and his shoulders are no longer slumped with an invisible weight. 

Finally, Jisung digs the heels of his palms into his eyes and breathes out a long breath, a shuddering sigh making itself known at the end of it. Minho wants to ask what his worries are and how he can assuage any of them, hopes that Jisung will tell him, but Jisung merely rubs his eyes harshly and starts off for the day.

It hurts, more than it ought to. Minho distantly thinks that he should perhaps be concerned for his own survival, if Jisung loses faith, but his mind focuses instead on the stinging pain of Jisung turning away from him for the first time, doubts plaguing his mind and yet not sharing the burden with Minho. Does he think Minho wouldn’t follow this whole time? Does he believe that Hades and Persephone would turn back on their word? Does he not lo— Minho shakes his head violently, disgusted with himself for even considering the possibility. Jisung is suffering right now, likely even more than Minho, and the least Minho could do is have the utmost faith in him.

The climb that day is suffocatingly quiet, broken only by Jisung’s grunts as he works his way around boulders and his harsh breathing as he walks. Minho can’t help but feel like he’s being punished somehow, like they had an argument that he wasn’t privy to and Jisung is ignoring him in anger. He shuffles behind Jisung quietly, thinking of everything that he could say, everything that he _will_ say once they’ve made their way out of the Underworld and he can finally close this unbreachable chasm between them.

That day’s climb ends sooner than the others, with Jisung sitting down hard onto a smoother rock and crying into his hands. “I’m so sorry,” he croaks through a hoarse throat and Minho is by his side in an instant. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—” A sound flies out from Minho’s throat before he can stop it, a high pitched note of sympathy and commiseration, but Jisung’s next gasp covers the sound. “I love you and I’m sorry for hurting you.”

 _I never once blamed you,_ Minho replies silently, and he has to curl his hands into fists to keep from touching. 

It takes a heartbreakingly long amount of time for Jisung to calm down, for him to be able to speak without gasps interrupting him every other word. “I worry that I’m running a fool’s errand,” he says in a hushed tone like it’s a bird he’s releasing from the cage of his chest. “I worry that I will make it to the surface and I will look back and you will never have been there.” Minho bites his lip hard enough that it would’ve bled if he still had blood within his veins. He doesn’t fault Jisung for it—the rulers of the Underworld are not particularly well-known for letting their subjects out of their kingdom. “I worry that the doubts that plague my mind are the worst truths. I don’t want to doubt you, but the silence makes it so, so difficult, love.” 

When Jisung goes to sleep that night, it’s with less restless shifting and what Minho hopes is a lighter chest, given the new weight that has just been placed onto Minho’s. He’s paralyzed with indecision—he can’t risk the chance that Jisung might turn to look at him, but he absolutely refuses to let Jisung fall apart like this if there’s any possibility Minho could do anything to help him. 

Jisung or Minho? Put like that, there’s no contest.

Minho finds a nook to tuck himself into a few steps further up the path, so that Jisung has some time to adjust in the morning and begin his trek anew before coming across Minho. His heart pounds frantically in his chest for the next few hours as he waits for Jisung to awaken, mind automatically running through all of the possible scenarios. He can’t even begin to guess which one will happen, but every single one of them makes a combination of excitement and apprehension churn in his stomach.

Once Jisung wakes, Minho properly ducks below the rocks he’s hiding behind, counting the seconds as Jisung’s steps draw closer and closer until he’s nearly upon Minho’s location, and continues counting until Jisung has passed by. He hopes that the need to turn around will act as some sort of flimsy protective measure. 

He clears his throat quietly, rough from disuse, and opens his mouth. “Sweetheart?” He waits for a response, straining to hear it over the sound of his heartbeat echoing in his ears, but none comes. “Jisung?” Still nothing.

The steps continue retreating further and further from where Minho is hidden, and as a final attempt, Minho swallows all of his misgivings and raises his voice as loud as he can bear to. “Jisung, love, can you hear me?” The lack of reply tells him all that he needs to know.

The revelation is crushing. He had been expecting something similar, of course—the goodwill of Hades only extends so far—but it’s one thing to suspect in the quiet of his own mind and quite another to have it proven to him so concretely. He takes a deep breath, pushing away the pinpricks at the corners of his eyes, and checks that Jisung truly isn’t looking in his direction before standing up and stumbling out of his enclosure. He’s sorely tempted to slip into the haze that threatens to cover his mind, ready to leave behind the pain that this journey has dredged up and turn to waking dreams, but he won’t allow himself to do that to Jisung. Jisung deserves more than that.

“We’re almost halfway there,” Jisung is saying when Minho catches up. “So close yet so far…” he trails off, footsteps slowing. “How has it only been half?” he asks quietly, like he’s talking to himself. “It feels like it’s been so much longer…” 

“Nothing’s too long when it’s for you, sweetheart.” Minho’s glad that Jisung can’t see the facsimile of a smile that makes its way onto Minho’s face. 

He follows quietly as Jisung continues his journey, feeling the silence in his throat even more keenly now that he knows it’s not necessary. Every second that passes that’s filled with only the sounds of Jisung’s breathing feels like the weight of the world upon him, like he’s Atlas, slowly succumbing under this mission that they’ve been chosen to bear out. Minho reminds himself once again that he is fortunate, that he can take comfort in Jisung’s form before him while Jisung cannot in Minho’s, but it rings like an empty reassurance in his ears. 

He watches Jisung grapple with a particularly large rock, feeling nothing but sadness even though Minho knows what comes at the end of this struggle, and it feels like a sigh of defeat rather than the betrayal that he knows it to be. Perhaps this is why none have ever returned from the Underworld. Not because it is treacherous for the body, but because it is treacherous for the heart and soul. 

The days bleed together. Minho walks with leaden feet and a slumped back even though he feels no physical exhaustion, mind singularly focused on keeping pace with Jisung. The times when Jisung rests become long stretches of swirling, chaotic thoughts, fear upon doubt upon terror mounting within him until he can barely remember what they’re working towards. There are days when Minho wants to sit down and not rise again, but then Jisung will speak again, and Minho will shake his head to rid himself of those creeping evils.

“I miss your smile,” Jisung says one day, staring up at the perpetually dark sky above them. Minho, watching the back of Jisung’s head, realizes with a pang the sudden yearning within his chest to see Jisung’s own heart-shaped smile. “I miss the way it feels like the sun comes out when you smile. I miss the way you’ll smile at the stray cats in our town. It’s softer than your smile when you find something funny, you know. And by the gods, I miss your laugh.” 

“I miss yours too,” Minho replies quietly. “I miss the way you smile brightly at everything, whether it be a bouquet of flowers or a meal that I cooked for you. I miss the way your eyes will shine with your happiness.” He never got a chance to tell Jisung, but his favorite memory, the one that he clings to in the darkness of the Underworld is of Jisung’s blissfully happy expression when they were declared as married. An entire lifetime of memories, and none will beat Jisung’s smile on that day. 

“I miss you,” Jisung whispers, like it’s a promise.

“I miss you,” Minho replies, and it’s a prayer.

They climb and they climb and they climb, alone and tired and _wanting,_ long past when Minho had expected to reach the surface, until even Minho starts to question the feasibility of their quest. A spirit returning to the land of the living? The dead coming back alive? There is a reason why the dead do not walk amongst the living. 

“Maybe this is all a dream,” Jisung tells him. Minho rolls his head in Jisung’s direction, catching the curve of Jisung’s ear above the crest of the rock he rests on. “Perhaps I have been driven mad by grief and the Algea have already taken my mind.” There’s a brief pause. “It is not as unlikely as I wish it to be. My mind yearns so much for you to be by my side that it has created an impossible possibility that you could return there.”

Minho wants to deny this, wants to say that he is as real as Jisung is, but his voice cannot give life to the thoughts. After all, it seems equally as likely that Minho is still trapped in the Fields of Asphodel, surrounded by gently waving stalks of white flowers and a bittersweet vision. 

“Cognito ergo sum,” he tells himself just as much as he tells Jisung. _I think, therefore I am._ There is no use in doubting themselves now, not when there’s even the slimmest chance of succeeding.

Now, though, it becomes increasingly obvious that both of them are beginning to doubt. It feels like ivy, burrowing its roots into the crevices of his mind, whispering to him of how Jisung speaks less and less, of how he drags his feet and how his arms tremble, and how Minho shakes in return. He knows it’s not true, of course. Jisung speaks less because there is not much to say. Jisung drags his feet because he only slept for a few hours the previous night. Jisung’s hands tremble from the exhaustion of pulling himself onto flat sections of rock as the path becomes steeper and steeper.

He doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t. _He doesn’t._

“How long is this road?” Jisung whispers, echoing the despairing wail within Minho’s own mind. “Have I been walking for months? Years?” He laughs bitterly and knocks his fist against the hard rock beside him. “Time passes strangely here.”

“What is eternity to the dead?” he murmurs in reply, but Jisung interrupts him before Minho can say anything else.

“The longer I walk, the harder it becomes for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, love.” The words ring like defeat in Minho’s ears, and it terrifies him that he’s not sure whether it’s a sweet or bitter sound. “How…” Jisung hesitates, and Minho can feel himself standing at the edge of a precipice, a yawning chasm of the unknown before him, knowing that regardless of what’s at the bottom, he won’t be able to return. “How bad would it truly be if I turned around?”

Only the smallest part of Minho protests. There is only loss if Jisung turns around—regardless of whether Hades was telling the truth of Minho’s return, he will be lost. But a much larger part urges him to reconsider. _You’ll be able to see his face again,_ it tells him sweetly, and oh, how Minho _yearns._ “Don’t do it, sweetheart,” he says weakly, and the lack of conviction rings true even in his own ears. “Think of the sunshine and the laughter. Think of our friends…” He trails off.

Jisung doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the day, but Minho knows the silence to be more dangerous than his speech. The silence means that Jisung is thinking, ruminating over the decision, turning it over and over and over again in his mind until his thoughts are in inescapable knots. It’s a silence that Minho knows well and one that piques the foreboding brewing in his chest. 

When Jisung rests for that night, it’s Minho’s turn to succumb to the pressing silence, the yawning emptiness that calls for him to reconsider.

How bad would it truly be for Jisung to turn around? Minho reluctantly puts aside the immediate spark of happiness in his chest at the thought of seeing Jisung’s face again, with his shining eyes and wide smile. If Hades and Persephone’s promise holds true, then he has the rest of his life to drink his fill of Jisung’s visage. No, he must think of all the consequences. He must think of the barren asphodel fields that spread as far as the eye could see, the empty promise that he could see Jisung again in death. He must think of Jisung, as heart-wrenchingly alone in life as Minho is in death. He must think— 

Jisung stirs, shifting uncomfortably between the rocks and Minho’s thoughts immediately dull to a buzzing whisper. Minho wishes that he could see the way Jisung’s eyes flutter open when he wakes, still slitted from sleep, but Jisung chose a particularly flat area to rest, and Minho is very carefully tucked out of sight, only able to see part of his profile. 

Sitting up, Jisung rubs his eyes lethargically and runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I dreamt of you,” he says softly, and Minho’s heart breaks with the wistfulness he can hear there. “I dreamt of the sunshine in your hair and your laughter like music in the air. So simple, but…” Jisung shakes his head. “If you revealed to me one day that you were Eros himself, I think I would laugh and tell you that I’ve known all along.”

“Then you are my Psyche,” Minho answers promptly, “because you are my soul and only an arrow of love could have made me love you this deeply.”

Jisung curls up a corner of his lip in a crooked smile, almost as if he could hear Minho. There’s a long pause during which Minho takes the opportunity to shift to his knees and prepare to stand, but Jisung’s voice stops him before he can move far. “I don’t think I can go any longer, love.” 

Minho can’t help but gape—in surprise, in terror, in awe, _he doesn’t know,_ but it’s strong enough to steal his words. He shoots to his feet and clambers to the area behind Jisung, careful to keep as out of sight as he can. “Please don’t do this—”

“I’ve been thinking about it—”

“No—”

“—and I’d rather see your face one last time than trek to the surface and realize you were never there to begin with.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Jisung,” Minho says desperately. “You’ve never seen the Fields of Asphodel in person, you don’t know what it’s like—” He cuts himself off when Jisung stands up. Jisung has always stood slightly shorter than Minho, but now he seems so formidable, stoic in the face of Minho’s growing panic. 

The world moves too slow and too fast all at once, too fast for him to know what to do, too fast for him to hide, too fast for him to _think,_ but too slow for his mind not to pull this moment apart and ask himself _what went wrong?_

 _I’m sorry,_ he thinks he hears, a whisper of a sound from Jisung’s mouth, and he stretches out a helpless hand—to grasp Jisung’s hand, to push him away, _to stop him._

“I’ll see you soon, love.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/yersin_a) | [tumblr](https://littlenookofnonsense.tumblr.com/) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/yersin_a)
> 
> the ending is a bit rushed,, but i was also trying to convey how quickly bad decisions can happen sometimes? (or _is_ it a bad decision? does minho manage to stop him? 👀)
> 
> the title translates to "i love, therefore i will live". flexing my five years of latin. also, a tiny finicky thing, but charon is associated with both the river acheron and styx. since styx is the river that ovid references and he wrote orpheus and eurydice, that's the one i ended up going with.
> 
> again, i don't usually write things this angsty so... lmk if you liked it? comments and kudos much appreciated ^^


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